Houses in books....where do you want to live ?

[Antiqueanniesmagiclanternshow]

Just reading the thread about homes and somebody mentioned no food smells in the kitchen.
This made me think of Penelope Keeling's house in The Shellseekers.
She has a huge basement kitchen with French doors into the garden, there is a scrubbed pine table with a jug of flowers on it and a delicious smell of garlic and herbs. She has shelves full of books and lots of records and silk indian throws on the sofa and omg! I want to live there!

Which fictional house do you want to live in?

Little house on the prairie- Always fascinated me.

Little house on the prairie- Always fascinated me.

I love those books, but have you ever looked at photos of actual claim shanties? The outsides were ugly and the insides were depressing. Put me right off the prarie dream.

Skeldale House, Darrowby.

@SomethingNastyInTheBallPool

Me too! I used to get quite annoyed with Mariella for not appreciating it.

Julie Andrews wrote a children’s book called Mandy, where an orphan girl finds a derelict cottage, and inside the chimney breast is made of mother of Pearl and seashells.

She makes it all cosy and I absolutely longed to live there as a kid and still do.

@Pyewackect

Skeldale House, Darrowby.

Absolutely!

Miss Honey's house in Matilda

Definitely Moonacre Manor in the Little White Horse. Also love Green Gables LMM has such a wonderful way of describing it and to visit Prince Edward island would be a lottery win visit (not that it's unaffordable more I would need endless time and money to justify visiting somewhere so remote)
I also loved the city house in Ballet Shoes. The house they can barely afford to keep, as along with the cook, housekeeper and nanny, the woman of the house can barely make the budget stretch.

@spotcheck
I was lucky enough to get there first but I'm happy to share (it's filling up fast though). Green Gables needs kindred spirits and I'm happy for as many of us to squeeze in as possible. We can stand shoulder to puff sleeved shoulder.

@Maireas

Yes, Lamb House which became Mallards in Mapp and Lucia! I always liked the sound of it when it became Mallards House after Lucia bought it and upgraded!

Oh yes, definitely Mallards once Lucia has restored it, without Mapp's dreary biscuit paint and dingy watercolours. And with the lovely garden room (sadly destroyed in real life by a German bomb in 1940).

Or The Hurst, Lucia' s Elizabethan house in Riseholme, before she moved to Tilling and began her epic conquest of Mapp's territory.

I'd also love the holiday home on a Finnish island in Tove Jansson's The Summer Book.

I've also been to the real Green Knowe and it did not disappoint. We all loved the house and the garden. Actually, the Norman manor that survives the fire at Duke's Denver in Jill Paton Walsh's The Attenbury Emeralds (one of her sequels to Dorothy L Sayers' Lord Wimsey novels) is also based on the real Green Knowe. It sounds just as appealing with Harriet restoring it.

@LunaNorth

Julie Andrews wrote a children’s book called Mandy, where an orphan girl finds a derelict cottage, and inside the chimney breast is made of mother of Pearl and seashells.

She makes it all cosy and I absolutely longed to live there as a kid and still do.

Oh, I’d forgotten that book — I loved the secret little house when I was little. And it’s reminded me of another secret escape house — the ‘cabin in the woods’ that Rusty paints and stencils when she’s miserable at boarding school in Michelle Magorian’s Back Home.

The aunts' house from Practical Magic.

Mandeley. I want that morning room so badly ! We are contemplating a rhododendron hedge at the bottom of our garden, I just need a faun for the middle of the lawn.

As a child I was fascinated by Craggy Tops in Enid Blytons Island of Adventure. From the World of Blyton website - Craggy Tops is the home of Uncle Jocelyn and Aunt Polly – and during the holidays, of Philip and Dinah Mannering. It is a huge old house, complete with tower, built into the rocky cliffs beside a wild sea. Half of it is crumbling away, perhaps because it is constantly being eroded by sea spray. There’s no electricity or running water, just oil lamps and a well outside. On the plus side, it has its own secret passage leading from the cellar to a cave on the beach

Green Gables or Anne's house of dreams. I'd also take Pemberley if it was going spare.

@AnneShirleysNewDress sadly I think the competition for Manderley and Pemberley is quite fierce 😂

I'd also be quite happy with Mr Knightley's gaff. I forget what it's called

Donwell Abbey

In one of the Janet & John books, I thinks it's "Out & About", their Dad is returning home from work to their perfect 1930s detached house. I always loved that house. It had green weatherboarding. I've seen one like in on the outskirts of Laxfield in Suffolk. It's never had a For Sale sign next to it though

If you bagsie Manderley you must accept Mrs Danvers as your housekeeper.

Pemberley’s huge though. Room for everyone. We could have a commune, but with servants.

@Serpenta that's ok, I will just make sure I never leave her alone with matches

Heidi's grandfathers house up the Swiss mountain. It sounds absolute bliss in spring and summer with the meadows of wildflowers, mountain air and just goats for company.

Or Christopher Robin's house - honey and Pooh sticks every day. I've seen his childhood home and it's lovely.

@HelenHywater

The Durrell's house in Corfu would be nice I think.

There's a book I can vaguely recall from my youth where a young couple lived in a flat in Hampstead with a grand piano. I always remember that and think it sounded lovely. (I'm sure it's a well known book from the 1960s...)

Is that Pennington’s Heir?

Cherry Tree Farm for me, but if that is taken March House (Orchard House), Little Women’s home.

TheCountess in your radical revisionist commune would you also be planning to have no work or tasks (farm labourers could perhaps be employed also), sumptuous individual apartments and so on ? If so please would you be so good as to send me the brochure?

Green Gables for me please! I'd also like Old Place from Trisha Ashley (Astley?)'a Twelve Days of Christmas. She makes it sound so cosy and comforting.

I live in the Green Knowe village and all the new inhabitants are welcome for tea and cake anytime!